Due to housing and commercial real estate development, structures such as houses, and commercial buildings often become subject to flooding after they are constructed. As urban development often changes drainage patterns in the area, houses or other buildings that were not originally thought to be at risk when built often find themselves in an area that is in danger of flooding.
One solution to this problem is to raise the living area to a desired flood protection elevation. Previous methods have been extremely costly and time consuming. Typical methods utilized have been to raise the entire slab foundation upon which a building is constructed, or to raise the constructed portion by building a crawlspace under it through the use of additional foundation or concrete walls.
Various drawbacks to the current state of the art limit their efficacy. Often, slabs that are being raised are not engineered for “floating” in air and can pose safety risks to the inhabitants of the structure. Further, for houses with attached garages, this method must overcome significant hurdles.
When building a crawlspace underneath the existing structure, a significant amount of weight is added which is required to be supported by the foundation, which was not engineered with this additional weight requirement in mind. This may result in costly changes to the foundation being required.
Further, when raising an already flood damaged structure, the living area still utilizes the structural components (such as studs in framing structures) which have been exposed to a flood and may have been damaged by flooding or have issues with bacteria and mold collection.
Current methods are extremely costly and time consuming to implement. Further, there is little to no flexibility for the owner to remodel or replace structural materials without considerable added expense.
A need exists, therefore, for a method of raising a structure which is cost efficient, addresses the capabilities of the existing foundation, and allows flexibility to change the interior of the structure.
The present disclosure meets the above needs.
The embodiments of the present disclosure are detailed below with reference to the listed Figures.